NASCAR

Kyle Busch gives fans a Daytona 500 M&M’s surprise

Kyle Busch is making a habit of surprising his fans when they least expect it.

“It’s fun. It’s a good opportunity to meet fans, kind of give them a little bit of a surprise and also get a taste of how big a fan they really are,” Busch told FOX Sports. “You walk up to them and sometimes it’s like they expect to see you for some reason – and others, they don’t expect it, and when they do see you they freak out.”

You may remember the video that went viral last year when Busch surprised a fan who was stuck beside him in traffic as he attempted to drive back to Charlotte, North Carolina following a race at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.

Well, now there is a new video to add to Busch’s collection of surprising fans – as he was at it again Friday at a Mars M&M’s interactive fan display featuring his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota just outside the Daytona International Speedway infield.

This time, workers at the M&Ms display gathered some fans around a life-sized cardboard cutout of Busch and told them it was for a promotional picture. But then at one point they said they had to switch out the cardboard cutout for another, and that’s when Busch came in behind them with the new cutout, attempting to conceal himself behind it at first.

“I came in there trying to hide my face,” said Busch, smiling. “I think one of the kids saw me, but he didn’t say anything.”

Two of the most surprised fans were Matthew and Diane McHale, NASCAR fans and natives of Ireland who now live in Florida.

“I was wondering what in the heck this guy was doing that was behind us,” Diane McHale said. “Then it turned out to be Kyle Busch. It was a very nice surprise. He was like, ‘Let me move this guy out of the way.’ And I was like, ‘Who is this guy moving the cutout out of the way?’ “

While Matthew McHale is a long-time fan of both Kyle and Kurt Busch, Diane is a newbie who was searching for a new driver to root for after her old favorite, Carl Edwards, stepped away from racing earlier this year.

“I had to come up with a new driver, so I picked Kyle. He’s off to a good start with me,” she gushed.